by Dan Padavona
Daylight rushed westward, turning the west-facing walls of Atlanta into burning embers.
“Hey, South Carolina. What do you say to us getting the heck out of Atlanta tomorrow morning?”
The blonde woman on the bed threw the pillow aside and turned to face her.
Keeshana had first seen Amy Jenner seated on a park bench in the center of the city. Amy had been mindlessly twisting the wedding ring on her finger, staring at her shoes. Amy appeared sheepish when Keeshana first approached her, but together they walked the city streets, sharing ideas of what had happened to all the people. Keeshana had thought it an act of God, who in His disgust with the world had called everyone to Heaven…or sent them elsewhere. Amy wanted to believe there had been some sort of environmental catastrophe, causing a massive evacuation. When Keeshana asked her why they had never received the evacuation order, all Amy could do was shrug her shoulders, not wanting to accept that everyone she cared about was forever gone.
After an hour of aimless walking, Keeshana tested the front doors to the Ritz-Carlton. Finding them unlocked, she’d said, “Full vacancy and the cheapest rates of the year. We might as well sleep in style.”
Since then, the shy, married woman from some little burg called Chardray remained quiet. Mostly she sat staring out at Atlanta through their third-floor window, watching the pigeons fly from balcony to balcony. Keeshana—who wore a green athletic shirt of the Mercer Bears, where she once coached track and field—liked to jog the halls and stairways of the sprawling hotel. When Keeshana went for runs, Amy locked and bolted the room, requiring Keeshana to knock upon returning.
That night, after the city of Atlanta fell under a shroud of blackness, Amy turned over in her bed and propped herself up with her elbow.
“Kee?” Amy had taken to calling Keeshana by her nickname.
“Yeah, South Carolina?”
“Do you ever think about people who you care about and whether or not they are in the same position we are?”
“Girl, I wonder about that all the time.” For a long time, the room was cloaked in silence. Somewhere below, a dog howled from the street. “Huh,” Keeshana said, laughing. “That sounded more like a wolf than a dog. How long do you figure it will be before dogs are running in packs, devolving back into wolves? I wonder if they will still be man’s best friend when all is said and done.”
Keeshana watched Amy twist her hair around her fingers.
“Something you want to talk about, Amy?”
“You’d probably think I was crazy.”
“After the last three days, you could grow a second head and sing a Simon and Garfunkel duet and I wouldn’t bat an eye. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
The night was still. The cooler air outside the open window sat poised on the balcony, while the interior of the room cooked.
“How many people are left in the city? As an estimate.”
Keeshana counted in her head the people and vehicles she had witnessed over the last few days. “I’ve seen about nine or ten, not counting the two of us. Now you figure that in a city this large, even if the remaining folks are out and about, we’ve probably only seen a quarter or so of the population.”
“So forty people.”
“Forty or fifty. Sure. What are you getting at?”
“Atlanta’s population is roughly 450 thousand. So one out of every thousand people is still here.”
“I suppose.”
“One in a thousand. Those odds aren’t too bad, are they?”
“Girl, if the lottery had been one in a thousand, I would have bought a thousand tickets a day. I’m still not following you, though.”
“It’s just that…you know…there’s a pretty good chance people we know are out there somewhere.”
“Try not to think too much about it, hon. You’ll make yourself crazy if you do.”
“I know.” Amy pulled the sheets toward her chin. “Sometimes, though…sometimes I kinda feel like my father is still alive, especially when I’m looking east. Maybe he’s looking for me, just the same as I am looking for him.”
“God willing, he is. Tell you what. Since we’re dead set on leaving tomorrow anyhow, and there isn’t anywhere in particular that we need to go to, what if we made our way to this Chardray of yours.”
Even in the murk of the hotel room, Keeshana saw Amy’s eyes brighten.
“I guess we could, couldn’t we?”
“Girl, there isn’t anything that we can’t do. We can find a sleepy lodge up Aspen way, grab an oceanside cottage on Cape Cod, or hole up in Cinderella’s Castle for all I care.”
Amy stifled a giggle with her hand. “I bet Malibu is nice this time of year.”
“Now you’re talking. The only thing slowing us down is finding a way to get from here to there. But we’ll find a way.”
“Right now, I want to get as far away from Atlanta as I can.”
“I heard that.”
“But—” Amy stopped, the gleam gone from her eye.
“Yeah?”
“What if my Dad isn’t there? I mean, there’s only a one in a thousand chance that he will be, right?”
“Try not to think about it. Maybe it would help you to see your old town, no matter who is or isn’t there. I bet you have a lot of great memories.”
“Yes. I do,” Amy said, smiling again.
“And I want you to show me where you played as a kid, where your favorite memories occurred, and where you had your first kiss. It will be like our own little adventure.”
“Sure. I’d like that, Kee.”
“Now stop all this talk about odds. I want to get some sleep, and you’re giving me cold sweats, thinking about Statistics 101 from my freshman year at Mercer.”
Amy chuckled and rolled onto her back. “Goodnight, Kee.”
“Goodnight, John Boy.”
A comforting breeze blew in from the balcony. On the street below, a tomcat darted beneath vehicles, creeping like a soldier through enemy territory. A raven perched itself on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton, following the cat’s movement with mannequin eyes.
As the raven glided down to the tree tops for a closer look at the cat, a man walked out of the darkness. He reeked of cheap liquor and cigarette smoke, and as he sidled down the sidewalk, he tossed an empty bottle of Jack Daniels into the street. Somewhere within the city, another bomb exploded in a car’s tailpipe. Nearby, a baseball bat smashed away the plate glass window of a furniture store. The man with the baseball bat seemed to be getting closer and closer to the Ritz-Carlton.
Keeshana pulled the covers over her head.
Please, let us get through one more night in the city.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lupan
Jacob Mann stood watching the glass double doors to the town courthouse of Red Oak in Tuesday’s last light. His fingers curled and uncurled. He thought that if he turned and ran, he could find a working vehicle and reach interstate 90 before the final blues of twilight. Once on the interstate, the United States would open up to him. He could reach South Dakota in a few days and the Puget Sound by Monday. Or maybe he would cross the border into Mexico and disappear in the Chihuahuan Desert. But he didn’t run. He stared at his reflection in the glass, his hands balled into fists and his fingernails digging holes into his palms.
On the unkempt courthouse lawn, a Persian cat lay on its side, breathing laboriously. Passing through town, Jacob had seen two dead squirrels on the sidewalk and a dog vomiting blood in the shade of an elm. Prior to the arrival of the man awaiting him in the courthouse, Red Oak had seemed almost normal, if you didn’t count the missing people. Now ugly Dalmatian-like splotches covered wilted leaves and flora curled over and shriveled as though it hadn’t rained in months, even though it had stormed twice since Monday.
He had spent the afternoon wandering back and forth through alleyways, smelling a new scent on the wind—a gangrenous rot. Whenever the wind gusted, a baleful crooning slipped through the alleys, like demons singing. Sometimes
he heard voices from his past on the wind.
You’re gonna go blind, Jacob!
Hey, Jacob. How’s the peephole to the girls’ bathroom?
Here comes Jacob with his girlfriend, Rosie Palm.
Don’t worry about Tori Daniels, Jacob. You’ve already had the best. How is your mom these days, anyhow?
What did Principal Mitchell do when he caught you slapping the salami in the janitorial closet?
Jacob—
He knew the voices were echoes stuck in his head, but often he clutched his hands to his ears, trying to shut them out, only to realize he was locking the voices in. Around noon he’d wandered into the high school, and that had been the worst. Ghosts still haunted the hallways. As he navigated the gloom, walking in the dead center of the halls, away from the rows of lockers so he could better see what waited around blind corners, he expected someone to jump out at him and throw him into a locker or slap textbooks out of his hands and run off laughing.
Hey, Jacob. You wanna borrow my electric razor to shave your palms?
Jacob, how does your mom tell yours and her mattress stains apart?
The school kitchen was well-stocked. As he sat at the familiar lunch tables, eating a fluffernutter sandwich on white Wonder Bread, the voices became louder, as though the students had returned and were shouting at him from across the room.
From his pocket he removed a dog-eared photocopy of Tori Daniels’ school picture scanned from last year’s yearbook.
Someone slammed a hand down on the table, bringing Jacob’s head up, but there was nobody there. Why am I hearing things? His fingers followed the faded contours of Tori’s face, and the ghosts of his past receded.
He wasn’t seated at the table anymore. He stood on the steps to the courthouse, thinking about the man that awaited within. A ghost, this man was not.
If Jacob ran now, the man waiting within the courthouse would find him. A man capable of placing thoughts into the mind of another was probably capable of most anything. Jacob hadn’t wanted to meet the man in person. That the man could speak to him from anywhere in the world was bad enough. The man was angry with Jacob, and now he would have to enter the empty halls and come face-to-face with the mysterious man.
The man called himself Victor Lupan, but Jacob didn’t believe that was his real name. Jacob wasn’t convinced the man had a name at all.
He watched his hand reach for the door handle, as though in a dream. He flinched, expecting the metal to shock. It didn’t. But the handle held the deep chill of January mornings.
The door swung open to darkness. Scattered squares of light checkered the floor where the perishing sun shone through west-facing windows. A recently-waxed tile floor led him down a long corridor of doors to the unknown. He put one foot in front of the other, hearing his footfalls echo off the walls. As he advanced into the shadowed corridor, he paid no mind to the closed doors to either side of him or the names and titles of the people who had once worked behind those doors.
Through an open doorway at the hallway’s end, flickering candlelight spilled Halloween pumpkin tones across the tile. The hallway seemed to stretch away endlessly, disappearing into blackness as though it continued into another dimension.
“Come to me, Jacob. I don’t have all night.”
That voice.
A rasp like rats skittering through dead underbrush.
Jacob’s blood turned to ice.
He stopped short of the door. The candlelight bled to the tips of his sneakers. The temperature in the hall fell twenty degrees, as though May burned without and December chilled within. He stood listening to his own breathing, feeling his heart thrum.
“Don’t make me come and get you.”
Jacob closed his eyes and stepped into the light. The chill of the hallway was nothing compared to the frigid air that met him in the doorway.
“Open your eyes and face me. There is nothing for you to fear.”
Jacob didn’t know what he would see within the office—a changeling werewolf; a phantom fluttering in the air with eyes like hurricane lanterns; the devil himself. When he opened his eyes, he saw a tall man leaning casually against the front of a secretary’s desk. Lupan’s arms were folded. He wore expensive shoes, dark pleated trousers, and a short-sleeve shirt that emphasized his strong arms. He was good looking, the sort of man that could attract any girl he wanted. But the candlelight did not reach the man’s eyes, giving the impression of hollow sockets—a ghoul’s face.
“Do you know why I called you here?”
Jacob tried to speak, and what came forth was a parched wheeze, as though he had walked a hundred miles through the desert.
“I asked of you only one thing, and still the girl escaped you. I trusted you Jacob. I trusted you to do a job, and you failed me.”
“I’m sorry.” Jacob’s voice was barely a whisper. His eyes darted about the room.
“Sorry is not good enough. Sorry is for defeatists. Sorry is for the meek and powerless. When I look at you, I do not see a powerless boy. Are you meek and powerless, Jacob?”
“No.”
In the flickering glow, the man’s body appeared to shift and grow.
“Good. Can I trust you to complete the jobs that I assign to you in the future?”
Lupan stepped forward, past the light. Now he was a silhouette against the orange glow, looming over Jacob.
“Yes.”
“Where is Tori Daniels now?” Silence. “She could be anywhere, couldn’t she? She could be halfway to Indiana or Florida. Or maybe she is hiding in Toronto or Montreal. Maybe she boarded a row boat and is somewhere off of Nova Scotia. By allowing her to escape into the night, you’ve cost me to lose track of her position. Who knows where she’ll surface? And if she finds the boy—”
“What boy?” Jacob didn’t like the idea of another boy being attached to Tori.
“He’s not your concern. Let me deal with him.”
But Jacob was angry now. He couldn’t wrestle from his thoughts the vision of another boy at Tori’s side. “I’ll kill this boy for you. I’ll find him, and I’ll kill him.”
In the battle between encroaching darkness and candlelight, it was difficult for Jacob to tell the difference between reality and imagination, but Lupan appeared to grow as he advanced on Jacob. Jacob thought Lupan’s head would touch the lowered ceiling, that Lupan would grow hideous fangs, and his eyes would become mirrors to the fires of hell.
Jacob blinked. Lupan was his normal size again. Still imposing, but not monstrous.
Shadows swam behind the desk. Jacob caught his breath. Another figure crouched within the darkness. It padded to the edge of the candlelight, where Jacob saw its bristled fur. The figure had a wolf’s shape, yet it was far too large to be a wolf. Its eyes radiated in the darkness.
Lupan laughed. “Do not concern yourself, Jacob. Only enemies need fear my friend.” Lupan reached back to scratch the animal behind its ears. The animal growled, and the hair rose on Jacob’s arms.
“I regret I cannot spend more time with you tonight, Jacob, but I have pending business in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Before we go any further, I suppose it is only fair that I answer any questions you may have. What, if anything, would you like to ask me?”
Jacob’s eyes shifted between Victor Lupan and the shadowed animal.
“Don’t be shy.”
Jacob cleared his throat. The candles flared as though touched by an invisible wind.
“Why do you want Tori Daniels so badly? She’s just a girl from my school.”
“Not just a girl, Jacob. Tori is quite remarkable, which may explain why you are so…attracted to her. She’s far more powerful than she realizes. The good news is that she has no concept of what she is capable of. I need to find her before she learns the truth, or she will be quite dangerous to herself and to everyone she comes into contact with.
“What else?”
“The people. Everyone who disappeared. Where did they go?”
Lupan
’s grin widened until Jacob was sure the corners of his mouth would meet at the back of his head. Candlelight flickered against his white teeth. “If a blight spreads through your fields, you remove the diseased plants and start anew. Otherwise the farm is lost. Perhaps someone upstairs sees our world as a failed planting—a blight. Yet the field still exists, and its soil is fertile.”
“Are you saying that God—”
“What I am saying is that the old world wasn’t working, so it was eradicated. It’s up to us to define what the new world will be.”
Lupan pushed himself up and sat on the desk. “We have an opportunity to reshape the world in our image. But there are others who wish to bring the previous world back—the same world that taunted you and tossed you aside like so much dirty laundry. A battle is coming, Jacob. Which side will you choose?”
“Not theirs.”
Lupan smiled and placed a powerful hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Never let me down again.”
Jacob lowered his eyes.
“Good,” Lupan said. He clapped his hands together, and the animal sat obediently next to him. “Now that our first order of business is out of the way, I am sending you west.”
“West?”
“To Iowa, specifically. A car will be waiting for you in front of the courthouse at 7 AM tomorrow. Do you have a watch?” Jacob didn’t answer. “No? Here. Take mine.” He slipped a gold-banded Rolex off his wrist and handed it to Jacob. “Don’t worry. I have more than one.”
“But I need to find Tori.”
Lupan grinned. His teeth were remarkably white in the dark of the office, shining like headstones. “You have quite an affection for Tori Daniels. I can see that. That may be useful in the future, but for now—”